Hello, all. 😊

First time posting here, so please forgive me if this isn't the kind of content you like to read, but I wanted to share and ask for feedback. I have been teaching about lockpicking and other hacking topics for quite a long time now. After seeing videos of some of my lectures and such, someone named Jeremiah contacted me saying that they were thinking of learning this skill and wondering if I thought hi could learn. He said the considerations that could pose complications, however, included:

1. He lived in a very distant Alaskan village
2. COVID (and bush plane access only) prevents travel
3. The person told me he was blind

I found this to be such a unique situation. At this point, I have taught thousands of people to pick locks. I've taught young and old folk, and even approached the topic when language barriers or accessibility considerations posed challenges. We have always found a way.

But this was particularly new to me... while there are a number of ways I and others have worked with unsighted individuals in person, being relegated only to Zoom resulted in us coming up with a really unique lesson plan. A series of 3D printed parts were created to present a progressive set of steps for explaining how the parts inside a lock interact and function.

And, exactly as I had hoped, by the end of our Zoom call together, Jeremiah was successfully picking actual, real-world locks for the first time!

While the recording wasn't perfect, I was ultimately very happy with what we were able to capture and document and I have put the whole thing up so that others can experience and hopefully learn from what we did together.

One small note I must offer as I share this link is to request understanding and perhaps forgiveness for what could be considered a badly-chosen title. The sad reality online (as Derek from Veritasium recently pointed out, as well) is that sometimes in order to communicate to a wide audience, an "enticing" title is what we choose. Exploiting the curiosity of potential viewers, I turned to the tactic of asking a rhetorical question in the title: "How quickly can a blind person learn lockpicking?"

It works as a YouTube title but I'm less happy with it as casual a question, though, as it frames the discussion with a subtext of "can non-ableds do the same things abled folk can do" which is not a theme we want to see given any traction.

But, with that small note addressed, I will share the video...

$1

... as I say in the doobly-doo of that YouTube entry, the audio improves considerably around the 12:40 time mark, once we adjust Zoom and bandwidth settings.

I hope you all enjoy it and can offer thoughts and feedback if you wish! 👍😁👍